110 THE ZOOLOGIST. 



to their ' Handbook of the Vertebrate Fauna of Yorkshu-e,' and would be 

 glad to have notes of additions or corrections to that work, or notices of the 

 occurrence of any species of quadrupeds, birds, reptiles, or fishes in York- 

 shire, which their friends may be pleased to communicate. As they wish 

 to pubHsh in the April magazines, it is hoped that the desired information 

 may be sent them immediately. 



MAMMALIA. 



The Burmese Elephant at the Zoological Gardens. — The question 

 that appears most to interest the public mind m the matter of this Elephant 

 is that of whether his peculiarity be a disease or not a disease. Now iu 

 styling it leucoderma, which is a known and definite disease, 1 differ point- 

 blank from Prof. Flower, who says (p. 63), " it does not result from any 

 disease of the skin, but is doubtless an individual congenital condition or 

 defect." He then goes on to say that if it e.xtended over the whole of the 

 integument, including the eye, it would constitute true "albinism," so that 

 he commits himself to regarding the condition as "congenital" partial 

 albinism, whicli 1 aver it is not. Prof. Flower concludes by expressing 

 some surprise at the perfect bilateral symmetry noticeable in this instance, 

 which he says is very rarely present in the local deficiencies of pigment 

 I'ouud either in domestic animals or dark-skinned men. Now as to that 

 last assumption he is partly right and partly wrong. Leucoderma is so 

 extremely rare a disease, either in man or in animals, that it is possible 

 Paof. Flower has never seen a case of it. F^or the twenty years that I have 

 been surgeon to the British Hospital for Diseases of the Skin, during which 

 time very many thousands of cases of skin disease of all kinds have passed 

 under my hands, 1 have met with but very few cases of leucoderma. I might 

 almost say I could count them on my fingers. In the dark races of 

 mankind it is supposed to be commoner than in Europeans, but this 

 supposition may well arise from the fact that in a black man the disease 

 constitutes a much more striking phenomenon than in a white man, and 

 that in the black races of man, who go about more or less completely 

 unclothed, the condition is much more exposed to general observation. 

 Now it is of the essence of leucoderma that it is not congenital. The 

 individual atlected with leucoderma is not born so. It is a condition he 

 acquires during his lifetime, sometimes at an early, sometimes at quite an 

 advanced age ; and then, again, it does not commence all at once as a large 

 patch, but, beginning in one or more small spots of decoloration, gradually 

 extends, until by degrees, spreading more in some directions than in others, 

 it at length forms large patches of irregular shape, which, however, always 

 have one notable peculiarity — namely, that more or less perfect " bilateral 

 symmetry" which seems to have rather surprised Prof. Flower in this 

 instance. Now from enquiry of Mr. White, in whose ciiarge the Elephant 



